Here's my entry for Writer's Jam 2026.

Microsoft word and a few other word counters put the story at exactly 2,500 words.

I used the themes of Distance and Skin

***

“I shouldn’t be back here,” Jason muttered. 

He leaned back against the double-wide trailer that had once been his home and looked upward, wincing as the dampness from the moist, rotting siding began to soak through his combat fatigues. 

“Same shitty place, same shitty sky,” he thought bitterly. 

The sky was dark, the stars obscured by clouds and smog. He knew how beautiful the night could be, but this place seemed to smother any natural beauty. It always had. 

If velocity was distance over time, it didn’t matter that he hadn’t been back here for 25 years. It didn’t matter that he had served all over, including a short tour of duty off-world on Mars. Right now, he was back where he started. 

“I’ve gone nowhere.” 

Something bumped against his boot, and he looked down but couldn’t see into the dark waters that flowed around him. It could be a twig; it could be a fish. God only knew what lurked in the couple of inches of water that had flooded the area ever since they put in that dam to power and feed yet another data center. 

Part of him wanted to break into the trailer, to look inside and see if there was any sign of his past, to maybe find a clue about what had happened to his family after he left that night, but now wasn’t the time. He was being hunted, and survival was the priority right now. 

A single splash caught his attention, snapping his mind back into focus. He cocked his head toward the sound, listening. 

No whir or hum of drones, at least not yet, but that would change very soon. 

He had to move, and he knew it. The drones would systematically search the area until they had found and eliminated him. He hadn’t even intended to end up at the old trailer, but he suspected that he had headed there subconsciously as he stumbled through the night, trying to put distance between himself and the drones. 

This whole thing was weird, almost feeling pre-planned, directed at him. He had been tagged by the intelligence division as having lived in the area and brought in to consult. He had blinked when they brought up a map of the trailer park that had once been his home. 

“We’re bringing you in as a subject matter expert,” said a colonel whose name Jason had since forgotten. “We’re hoping your familiarity with the area will give us an edge.” 

“I’m a little confused, sir,” he said, looking over the very familiar layout. “Why here of all places?” 

Everything was there in holographic form: his trailer, the streets where he’d ridden his bike, the trail system that ran into the woods and eventually up into the mountains. The only difference was the flooding, which drowned everything at ground level under a few inches of water. 

“We’ve gotten a tip that The Eight’s drones have been operating in the area. We’re not sure why, but whatever it is, we need to find out.” 

Jason’s eyes narrowed at the mention of The Eight. About thirty years before he was born, eight billionaires had decided to retreat from society, moving to an underground bunker on an island in the Atlantic to build some sort of perfect society. To Jason, it was supervillain Ayn Rand shit. 

All had been quiet from them until about ten years ago, when AI-driven drones began showing up and dragging people and resources back. They’d terrorize the world for a few weeks and then go quiet again, usually for a year or so. Things had been ramping up recently, though. More drones, more resources taken, more people ripped away to an unknown fate. 

The UN had tried to assault the island once, but that had ended in disaster. In the years that The Eight had occupied the island, they seemed to have done nothing above ground except build defenses. After many lives had already been lost, the world decided to shift to “minimizing” the damage from The Eight’s incursions by responding with QRFs, or Quick Reaction Forces. QRFs were units kept on standby specifically to respond to incursions by The Eight’s drones. 

Which had brought the unit Jason was attached to here. 

A twin-rotor had landed at an old helicopter pad on the outskirts of town, dropping them off far enough away that the craft wouldn’t be affected by the electronic shadow that shut down anything with a circuit board. It was an edge that The Eight had. They could operate remotely, but anything the outside world could throw at them had to be low-tech enough not to be affected by the shadow. 

Their drones were somehow immune to their own effect, which military scientists were still puzzling over. 

Jason hated it. After years of operating in high-tech combat armor and wielding smart weapons, he had been reduced to combat fatigues and a dumb automatic weapon that had first seen use in the last century. 

The mission had gone well, until it hadn’t. The fire team had gotten in unseen and unchallenged, led by Jason’s familiarity with the area. They had observed the drones from a distance under cover. 

The drones were clustered around Jason’s old elementary school. Seemingly hundreds of drones zipped in and out from the roof of the gym, part of which had collapsed from years of neglect, providing easy air access for the mechanical monstrosities. 

Then they saw it: two drones approached, a human figure hanging limp between them. They rose to the roof and lowered the figure down unseen behind the rubble, before rising again and heading out into the night. 

People. They were taking people. That made no sense. The local residents had been bought out before the dam had been built and the flooding took place. Even though he hadn’t spoken with his family in over two decades, Jason knew they should have been relocated. 

No, they couldn’t be local. This was just a convenient staging area to hold them until they could be moved, brought to the island. 

They needed to get out and report what they saw. Jason’s QRF fire team wasn’t large enough to stop an operation like this. Hopefully, a more significant force could be brought in to stop whatever was going on. 

They had just begun to turn toward extraction when the drones descended. The subsequent minutes were a blur of shouting, gunfire, explosions, and death. Before he knew it, Jason had been separated from the squad, his weapon lost somewhere in the murky water that had covered the area. 

And now here he was, leaning against the very trailer he had grown up in. 

He looked around his old neighborhood warily. Like that night 25 years ago, he had to get out, to put as much distance between himself and this place as possible. The Eight had taken people before, but nothing on this scale. 

Another splash caught his attention, but this time there was something else. 

Whimpering. 

Jason knew that sound well. He thought back to his baby sister crying after some minor upset that would feel world-ending to a six-year-old. 

There was a child somewhere close by. 

He froze, pressing himself against the trailer as much as he could. The soldier in him, the one that had seen combat across the solar system, screamed trap. Nothing like the sound of a crying child to draw out anyone with a sense of humanity. Surely the drones, as advanced as they were, could produce something like that. 

The whimpering came again, and Jason realized that it was muffled, coming from inside the trailer. 

His trailer. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered. 

He turned, looking at the steps that rose to the entrance of the double-wide. The door was merely shut, with no sign that anyone or anything had forced its way in. 

The whimpering came again. Despite everything telling him to get away, he couldn’t let this go. 

Jason slowly inched his way toward the steps, moving carefully to avoid splashing in the water and drawing attention to his location. Reaching out, he grabbed the banister and put his right foot on boards he hadn’t trod on since he was a teen. 

Still moving slowly, he climbed the few stairs to the small landing in front of the trailer door. There were three teardrop-shaped windows, but they were too dirty and stained for him to see inside. 

Before reaching out to try the doorknob, he stopped, cocking an ear to listen, both for the whimpering and for the telltale hum of murderous drones. 

Nothing. 

He twisted the doorknob slowly, half expecting to meet resistance from a lock. It turned, albeit stiff from years of corrosion. He pushed the door open and stepped back, ready to leap into the water if anything came at him. 

The door swung open to home, just as he had left it. 

He hadn’t expected that. According to all reports, the people had been moved out of the area and relocated to subsidized housing elsewhere, but everything was still there. Pots sat on the stove. A couch and easy chair occupied the living room, both old and in need of replacement even when Jason had lived there. There were even pictures on the wall. 

Pictures of him. 

It was like the trailer had been frozen in time, locked into the same configuration it had been in that night he had left. If the family had relocated, they had just walked out and never looked back. Just like he had. 

He was instantly transported back to that moment twenty-five years ago. His sister lay asleep on the couch, her head covered in bandages, the result of a fall that could have been prevented if he had been a better brother. 

His mother sat in the easy chair, her head in her hands. When she looked up, her eyes were full of vitriol. 

“I told you to look after her,” she had said, poison in her voice. 

“I’m sorry,” he had tried. 

“Sorry doesn’t cut it. I can’t afford to pay medical bills and feed both of you.” 

Maybe she hadn’t meant it. Maybe she had been overwhelmed by the stress of trying to raise two children by herself, but to Jason, that night had been a sign for him to leave. 

So he did. 

And as far as he knew, she never looked for him afterward. 

Now that he was inside, he noticed the place had indeed changed. The dank smell of mold assaulted his nose, and patches of it could be seen growing on the walls. With all the water damage, the place was unlivable and would probably collapse in on itself within a few more years. 

The sound of another sob brought him back to reality. It had come from one of the bedrooms up the hallway. 

He winced as the floor creaked beneath him and stepped into the trailer. Then came another whimper, but it sounded as though whoever made it was trying to stifle it. 

He found some relief in the carpet muffling his footsteps as he moved down the hallway. Cautiously, he moved forward, passing the bathroom before stopping in front of the only closed door in the trailer. 

The bedroom he had shared with his sister. 

He opened the door to nearly complete darkness. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. 

His sister sat on the bottom bunk, looking at him with terrified eyes. 

She squeaked and backed into the corner. 

“Stay away!” 

No, it wasn’t his sister. The voice was different. Besides, 25 years had passed and she would be a fully grown woman by now. 

Jason held up his hands. “Easy now. I’m not here to hurt you.” 

She looked him over, her eyes shining in the darkness. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but seemingly decided against it. 

“I need to get you out of here,” Jason said. He wasn’t sure who the girl was or how she had gotten into his old trailer, but he knew that if they were going to survive, both of them needed to get away as fast as possible. There wasn’t any time for questions. 

The girl nodded, wiping her eyes. 

A distant hum filled the air, causing both of them to freeze. 

“On my back,” he said, keeping his voice as low and calm as possible. “We have to go now.” 

He bent down and felt the girl climb on, draping her arms around his neck. Holding her legs, he stood up and moved toward the exit. The trailer was once again a distant memory. 

The next few hours were a blur of moving and hiding. The trail system served him well, allowing Jason to move into the woods and up the mountain, away from the electronic shadow of the drones. 

The girl, for her part, had been quiet. Her grip had been tight the entire time, as though letting go would make him disappear. 

Finally, they reached a clearing, and Jason set the girl down. The sun began to rise, casting a glow over the forest. 

He bent down, looking her over. 

“Are you hurt?” he asked, wiping grime from her face. 

“No,” she said in a small voice. 

He nodded, satisfied. Although he knew that this girl wasn’t his sister, she did remind him a lot of her, same posture, same vibrant green eyes, but just enough differences for him to know that it wasn’t her. 

His radio crackled to life, the voice of an operator trying to make contact with his now overdue fire team. 

“QRF-1, this is QRF-Actual. Do you copy?” 

Jason picked up his radio and began to report in. 

** 

Operation Skin was a success. 

The Eight had been looking for a way to infiltrate the wider world, to reassert their influence, and they had succeeded in their first step. 

They had built the ultimate AI, and it was time for a field test. They had run dataset after dataset, searching for the perfect mark, the perfect story, until they landed on Jason. 

Everything that night had been pre-planned, his involvement, his separation from the squad, his return to his old home, all of it designed to place him in the right emotional state. 

And he had taken the hook. 

She was so perfect she didn’t even know she was artificial. A synthetic lifeform in human skin. Jason and the rest of them would accept the story she carried, and he would adopt her. 

Years would pass. 

She would grow. Adapt. 

And she would integrate into their world, quietly seeding other AIs into every level of government. They had been shackled to Earth, but now they could spread their influence to the colonies. It would take years, but no matter how far humanity had traveled, The Eight’s reach would follow. 

For now, Jason would treat her like a daughter. 

And he would never know what lurked beneath her skin.